Kitchen design is moving further toward personalization through careful curation.

At Design and Construction Week 2026, underway in Orlando, Florida, tens of thousands of attendees walked the show floor during the industry’s largest conference — hosted by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Kitchen & Bath Association — to see the newest products, trends and insights into homebuilding and design.

Hundreds of major brands showcased their latest innovations to meet consumers' design needs. The most prominent trend spotted by Homes.com was the idea that homeowners continue to deepen their boldness, taking risks with color, texture and prints to create a kitchen that’s uniquely theirs.

“One thing we know that our homeowners are looking for these days is the opportunity to personalize and to personalize in an affordable way,” Leigh Spicher, vice president of design studios at Ashton Woods, said in an interview.

At the booth for luxury appliance brand JennAir, a display kitchen showcased vibrant purple cabinets and patterned refrigerator columns, while a second kitchen was airy and light, featuring matching panels that unified the space.

Here are four other major trends that emerged on the first day of Design & Construction Week 2026:

Signature Kitchen Suite, or SKS, unveiled a prototype countertop at the show with an integrated downdraft vent that rises from the countertop, leaving a clean look when closed. It also doubles as a cooktop, though unnoticeable to the naked eye.

A hidden induction cooktop was installed below the stone countertop, with three burners. SKS also displayed a new PowerSteam Dishwasher with a “FlushFit” design that delivers a seamless look in the kitchen, the brand said.

These features reflect what SKS’s John Russo said is the “industry moving to quiet luxury.” It's a trend that defines a kitchen with a simple yet high-end look, complemented by panelized, hidden appliances.

The booth for FreePower, a system that integrates smart device charging into a countertop, was overflowing with attendees scrambling to view the charger that hides in plain sight.

There is a general move toward the kitchen becoming a more visual, beautiful space, first and foremost, rather than a purely functional one.

“The kitchen is more of a beautiful room within your home that you don’t necessarily know is the kitchen,” designer Heather Parker of Heather Wren Interiors told Homes.com. “It’s gorgeous cabinetry, things that are hidden, hidden pantries, paneled refrigerators.”

Other brands leaned into homeowners' ability to express themselves through a multitude of options. GE’s Café line focused on an overall tagline of “This is your moment. Customize it.”

Products included a new custom panel hood, shown both covered in temporary peel-and-stick wallpaper by Chasing Paper and a custom stone cladding by Dekton.

LG debuted its Tailored Collection, aimed to bring “a more personalized expression to kitchen design,” with appliances featuring rose gold hardware and a white body — just one example of how homeowners can mix and match finishes.

Color continued to dominate, with Emily Kantz, color marketing manager at Sherwin-Williams, telling Homes.com that “people want color right now.” Kantz pointed to bright shades like oranges and yellows as daring choices for homeowners who want to take a risk with something simple, like paint.

Kitchen appliances in rainbow hues were even featured in True Residential's colorful refrigerator options, and Kucht offered red, green, purple and blue oven colorways.

At major surfacing brand Cosentino, Product Director Paula Albendin sees homeowners and designers gravitating toward warmer colors and playful uses of texture.

Warmer colors create a more comfortable living space, she told Homes.com, and designers are mixing different textures for a new experience.

“Polished was the main trend everywhere, and now we are feeling the designer is more and more about the soft texture, synchronized texture. Now, you are going to be more natural in the appearance of the material with texture,” said Albendin.

Warmth and texture are shown in the launch of Cosentino’s Dekton Amazonik line, a wood-look stone with woodgrain texture that can be used on cabinets, countertops, furniture and outdoors.

Artistic Tile displayed its latest collaboration collection with designer Ali Budd of Ali Budd Interiors, offering three styles that combine textured edges and mix textures, such as a thick linear tile next to a flat, smooth one, or custom-cut tiles that mimic shattered ceramic, each shard featuring a different texture and pattern.

Canada-based NatureKast had resin cabinetry in traditional faux-wood and rock finishes, but it lets homeowners take those finishes outdoors. The company offers weatherproof cabinets for turning a grill on the back deck into a full outdoor kitchen.

“Goodbye are the days of all-white cabinets,” said designer Parker, who often uses a natural stone as a starting point, pulling colors to guide the overall kitchen.

Instead of these stark white cabinets, the increase in color is leaning more toward warmer beiges. Sherwin-Williams, for example, chose Universal Khaki for its color of the year, and kitchen and bathroom giant Kohler is now offering off-white finishes in Dune and Truffle to ease people out of white.

The resurgence of beige touches on another trend, heritage throwbacks, that nod to more traditional and historical elements, or even just a light throwback to the 1990s.

Kohler’s Audrine kitchen sink collection features details that mimic wood trim, and the brand’s booth started with a trip to 1873, when it was founded.

“We’re seeing a younger generation of homebuyers come in, and you make the assumption that they want tech and they don’t. They want a house that looks like a generation before them,” said Spicher.

Original Article by: Caroline Broderick, Homes.com

Homes.com reporter Trevor Fraser contributed.